Hard Earned Day Off

Shenzhen Adventure Day 8

14 Jun 2015

Today was basically a day off, I answered emails and worked on a small project,
as well as doing a couple edits to my board design to get feedback from Bunnie.

In the evening, we went to get dinner at a Pakistani restaurant. After dinner,
Akiba led us on his ritual treat; Mango slushies and foot massages. I didn’t
get many photos of the massage, but it was pretty awesome. For about 10 USD,
you get an hour massage.

First, you take a long tea-foot bath. After brewing for a few minutes, you plop
your feet out and the massage begins. They start by filing down your feet and
chiseling them to get rid of dead skin and callouses. Then you get some
standard massage-y stuff. Then, it gets interesting. The masseuse pulls out a
small torch and lights it on fire. Then, she quickly flips a glass cup over the
flame (which is held dangerously close…) and slips it on your foot and
suckers it off. This is the famed practice of cupping. After doing lots of
quick cups, some larger ones are placed on and left to sit for a few minutes.
These ones really hurt! Actually, come to think of it most of the massage
hurt… Anyways, after cupping the remainder of the massage was fairly normal.
My feet felt pretty fucking awesome afterwards, not bad for 65 RMB.